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Tuesday, 4 April saw a celebration of 25 years of Ukrainian independence. At the Hintz Alumni Center, Helen Woskob gave introductory remarks before Michael Bernosky read from her newly published memoirs, Freedom & Beyond: My Journey from Ukraine to a New Life in America, and from Dr. Michael Naydan's novel set in Lviv, Seven Signs of the Lion. Dr. Markian Dobczansky, Jacyk Fellow at the University of Toronto, gave a lecture outlining the origins of the current Ukraine-Russia conflict. A reception followed as attendees admired a display of woodcarvings by Serhiy Karpenko. The festivities were capped by a performance at Schwab Audiorium by the renowned Ukrainian folk quartet Dakha Brakha.

Besides Ukrainian independence, the day also celebrated 25 years of Ukrainian Studies at the Pennsylvania State University, with remarks by the Deans of Agricultural Sciences and Liberal Arts at PSU, and the Rector of the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Kyiv.

The event was sponsored by the Colleges of Agricultural Sciences and Liberal Arts, the Woskob Family Foundation, and the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures.

17 of our undergraduate majors received their Bachelor's degrees at the Penn State May commencement.

Russian major Brian Zdancewicz (to right of banner in photo) was honored as Student Marshal for the Department, accompanied by Dr. Irina Mikalien, Senior Lecturer in Russian, as Faculty Marshal (to left of banner). In addition, Dr. Sabine Doran (in center of right-hand panel), Associate Professor of German, was chosen as Faculty Marshal for Global and International Studies, accompanying Student Marshal Ava Doery.

We congratulate all our:

GERMAN MAJORS

RUSSIAN MAJORS

Anna Blyth

Katrina Hartman

Ian Cameron

Daniel Kiefer

Jacob Cordell

Maria Kravets

Jack DiMidio

Robert Vorhees

Kendra Hepler

Brian Zdancewicz

Justin Kilner

John Kozorra

Megan Krause

Hannah Lasure

Mark Milutonovic

Kelly Morrow

Olivia Raub

Congratulations also go to three graduate students who received their Ph.D.s in May: Katherine Anderson; Liese Sippel; and Adam Toth.

On March 18, two examiners from the Goethe Institute in New York, Steffi Krause and Andrea Pfeil, visited the University Park campus to administer the Zertifikat Deutsch exam to seven German majors and one German graduate student. (Four of the test-takers are shown at right completing the listening portion of the exam.) The ZD exam, which tests all four skills in German, is recognized everywhere in the world as a certification of German skills, and is a foundational document for employment with a German company or university study.

On 15 March, Katherine Anderson successfully defended her dissertation for the German Ph.D., "Foreign Writing Agency: Maria Cecilia Barbetta & Abbas Khider Rewriting Identity after Trauma in German as a Foreign Language." Ms. Anderson compares the two authors on the basis of the traumatic events that underlie their writing, and of their working through trauma through the adoption of German as a language and through the use of a variety of distancing techniques. Congratulations, Kate!

Mallory Bubar has been awarded the Milton B. Dolinger Fellowship in World War II Era Studies for the 2017-2018 academic year. The Fellowship will allow Mallory to work full-time on her dissertation, which is focused on representations of children in Holocaust literature and archives. Congratulations, Mallory!

The Woskob Family Foundation, the College of Liberal Arts, the College of Agricultural Sciences, and the Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of Ukrainian Independence and 25 years of Ukrainian Studies at The Pennsylvania State University in University Park, PA on Tuesday April 4, 2017. The event will also mark 25 years of cooperation in Forestry and Agricultural Sciences with the National University of Life and Environmental Sciences (NULES) in Kyiv, Ukraine.The Rector and representatives of NULES will be in attendance at the daylong series of events.

The schedule for the day includes the following:

vAt 3:00PM there will be a book launching of Helen Woskob’s memoirs Freedom and Beyond: My Journey from Ukraineto a New Life in America as well as Professor Michael Naydan’s novel about the city of Lviv Seven Signs of the Lion at the Hintz Alumni Center on the Penn State University Park campus. Actor Michael Bernosky will provide dramatic readings from both books.

vAt 4:00PM Dr. Markian Dobczansky (PhD in history from Stanford University and Jacyk Fellow at the University of Toronto) will present a lecture “The Legacy of Soviet State-Building: A Historical Primer on the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict” at the Hintz Alumni Center.

vAt 5:00PM Dean Susan Welch of the College of Liberal Arts and Dean Richard Roush of the College of Agricultural Sciences will open the reception at the Hintz Alumni Center.

vAt 5:15PM to 7:00PM a reception sponsored by the Woskob Family of State College at the Hintz Alumni Center in honor of the 25th anniversary of Ukrainian independence as well as a commemoration of 25 years of Ukrainian studies in Liberal Arts and Agricultural Sciences at Penn State. There will also be an exhibit of woodcarvings by Ukrainian artist Serhiy Karpenko during the reception.

vAt 7:30PM the Ukrainian world music group DakhaBrakha (pictured at right) will perform in Schwab Auditorium. The performance is sponsored by The Woskob Family Foundation at Penn State.

Dr. Markian Dobczansky studied Soviet, East European, and Imperial Russian history at Stanford University. The topic of his dissertation was “From Soviet Heartland to Ukrainian Borderland: Searching for Identity in Kharkiv, 1943-2004.” His academic interests include Soviet history, nationalism, Russian-Ukrainian relations, and urban history.

DakhaBraka is a world-renowned group from Ukraine whose music is described as “ethnochaos.” They create a world of unexpected music at the intersection of folklore and theater. Using traditional music from various regions of Ukraine as a starting point, the quartet incorporates rhythms from around the planet to create a bright, fierce, and unforgettable sound. For information on tickets call 814-863-0255 or go to cpa.psu.edu or http://cpa.psu.edu/news/dakhabrakha-infuse-controlled-rhythmic-chaos-april-4 for additional information.

Serhiy Karpenko is a Ukrainian artist who was born in the town of Koziatyn in the Vinnytsia region of Ukraine. Originally educated as a physical education teacher, he has been a woodcarver since 1993. He has exhibited throughout Ukraine and the US. His woodcarvings are known for extraordinary detailed and refined technique as well as for the presentation of traditional Ukrainian historical themes in the unique bas-relief wood medium.

The Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures at Penn State University will be hosting middle school and high school German students at University Park for German Day 2017. It will be a fun-filled day of German language activities, including a poster and movie competition, a spelling bee, poetry recitation, German trivia game, and presentation of a one-act play by fifth-semester PSU students. Students will also have the opportunity to practice their German (and earn prizes!), learn more about studying German at Penn State, visit a German language or culture class, and get a tour of campus.

The event is co-sponsored by the School for Global Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, the Center for Global Studies, the Center for Language Studies, the Program in Linguistics, and AFS-USA.

For further information, visit the event website. http://sites.psu.edu/germanday/

On 28 February 2017, Adam Toth successfully defended his dissertation for the Ph.D. in German under the direction of Drs. Bettina Brandt and Daniel Purdy. Adam's dissertation, titled "Kafka’s Mei Lanfangs: Race Theory, Performativity, and the Undoing of German Orientalisms," analyzed Orientalist writings of Franz Kafka as deconstructions of 19th-century German race theory.

Dr. Gerhard F. Strasser's internationally recognized expertise in cryptography brought him a transatlantic telephone call from NPR Marketplace. NPR conducted a 31-minute interview at the end of November 2016, which was edited and inserted as a feature in the Marketplace Codebreaker series: On Dec. 21, 2016, it was turned into a kind of dialogue on Vergennes' method. Broadcast Episode No. 6, "Cryptography," can be accessed at http://features.marketplace.org/codes .